“Under Pressure”: Permanent Transformation of the Administration of Regional Development in Hungary

This paper could be interpreted as a problem map, by which the challenges and solutions of the Hungarian regional development administration could be identified. The paper focuses on the institutional, organisational system, and the changes of the regulatory environment of these bodies from the time of the pre-accession until 2024 are analysed. This transformation of the administration has a direct impact on sensitive political issues, and this structure was even an object of power games in the Hungarian politics. Therefore, the main factors of the Hungarian administration have been, first of all, the European environment, especially the regulations related to the EU budgetary cycles. Secondly, as it could be seen, the changes of the government and even the power struggles within the governments have been a significant factor of the changes of the administrative organisation of the Hungarian regional development system. In the Hungarian regional development administration, a fragmentation at the government level can be seen, where under certain governments different aspects of the regional development were shared sometimes by three-four major actors. This fragmentation continued until 2022, when a comprehensive integration was undertaken by merging all issues linked to regional development into one ministry.